Friday, September 5, 2014

Mary Magdalene authored the 4th G.

When I first heard the idea that Mary Magdalene authored the
Fourth Gospel, I dismissed it as a half-baked feminist idea. As a feminist I could believe it possible, but too radical, too unorthodox, for sufficient credible evidence to be found. I was wrong.

I no longer doubt that Magdalene was the original author
of this unique Gospel, because of an article by Ramon Jusino. Notice
it is a man’s name. And he bases his assertions on the work of Raymond Brown,
acknowledged as the foremost authority on the 4th Gospel, although Brown
did not conclude that Mary Magdalene was the author.

These background statements are virtually undisputed by
scripture scholars, some of them strengthened by Brown:

[Mary Magdalene] is cited by all four Gospels as being
present at both the Crucifixion of Jesus and
the Empty Tomb on the morning of the Resurrection.

. . . the prominent
role of female disciples . . . quickly became an embarrassment to the male
leaders of the emerging institutional church [who] . . . made a concerted
effort . . . to suppress the knowledge of any major contributions made by
female disciples.

Works of antiquity go through modifications or redactions,
but the acknowledged author “is the person whose ideas the book expresses.”

The Beloved Disciple of the 4th Gospel “knew
Jesus personally and was in the originating group of the Johannine Community.”

The final version of the gospel was written after the death
of the Beloved Disciple.

The previous are common conclusions. Here come Jusino's clinching arguments for Magdalene authorship.

Seven puzzling passages in the 4th Gospel refer
to an anonymous Beloved Disciple. The traditional belief that it was John and
he authored the Gospel is based on a claim by Irenaeus that has little
credibility and Brown rejected.

The Beloved Disciple “was clearly the founder and hero of
the community that produced this Gospel,” writes Jusino. Mary Magdalene, the
female founder, would have been an embarrassing fact for a community striving
to go mainstream.

Raymond Brown found a schism in the early history of the
Johannine community between those aligned with Gnostics and those striving to
be orthodox. Gnostics were more accepting of female leaders. The orthodox were
more willing to conform to the emerging church hierarchy.

Mary Magdalene is identified as the Beloved Disciple in the
Gnostic works, the Gospel of Philip,
the Gospel of Thomas, and the Gospel of Mary. In the last, Peter asks sullenly,

Did [Jesus] really speak with a woman without our knowledge
(and) not openly? Are we to turn about and all listen to her?Did he prefer her to us?

WHY, in the canonical version of the Gospel we have, is the
Beloved Disciple assumed to be a man? Brown wrote, "Gnostic writers spawned a tradition naming Mary Magdalene as
the disciple whom Jesus loved . . .” Jusino thinks those who wanted to join the institutional
Church redacted the Gospel to remove Mary Magdalene’s name and turn the Beloved
Disciple into a man.

Raymond Brown did not reach Jusino’s conclusion, but Jusino built on Brown’s research. His conclusion makes sense in light of it. The evidence:

Brown’s research reveals “abundant evidence of familiarity
with Johannine ideas” in Gnostic works unearthed at Nag Hammadi. The 4th Gospel was popular among
Gnostics early on when it was first conceived.

Structural oddities and flaws in seven passages support
Jusino’s view. Concealing the fact that the B.D. was a woman would explain their
mysterious references to an unidentified disciple, a mystery cleared up if a
redactor took out Mary Magdalene’s name and turned the B.D. into a man.

Two passages were harder for the redactor to fix:

John 19: 25-27. Why is the B.D. not included in the list of
people standing by the cross when that disciple takes in the mother of
Jesus?Brown noted this problem. It is
solved if Mary Magdalene is the B. D.

The other passage most obviously betraying the awkward hand
of a redactor concealing the Magdalene’s identity occurs in John 29:1-11. Peter
and the other supposedly male disciple race to the tomb, after which Mary
suddenly is there weeping at the tomb. Brown
observed,

It is not clear when or how Magdalene got back to the tomb.

Jusino gives a satisfying solution to the puzzles in these
passages, and he provides more corroborating evidence. Brown noted,

The unique place given to women (as proclaimers) in the
Fourth Gospel reflects the history, the theology, and the values of the
Johannine community.

The Fourth Gospel contains many accurate references to Holy
Land places and customs suggesting eyewitness authorship.

The competition between Peter and the B.D. in the 4th
Gospel mirrors the competition between Peter and Magdalene in Nag Hammadi
works.

When the name of Mary Magdalene is inserted into the odd
passages, their meaning clears up. The only difficulty is overcoming our
conditioning in order to accept a woman in the position of favored leader.

I left out chunks of Jusino’s fine scholarly article, hoping you will read it and overcome patriarchal
conditioning to see its soundness.

September 18

In the 6 plus years I have been blogging, no topic has
generated as much enthusiastic feedback as Jusino’s thesis about Mary Magdalene. (My concise summary above)
All of the responses endorse his conclusion.

Thanks to John Chuchman of Michigan and Arizona for igniting
much of this discussion, which opened new territory. Here are samples.

More than "possible." Indeed quite probable!
Frank

This is Beautiful. I've heard this before
and believe it. Right now there is an ex-Jesuit (something like 30+
years) who was pushed out for his revolutionary behavior of nonviolently
standing for issues. His name is John Dear. I've known that he,
along with Jesus, is working for the Goddess face of Source. It is all
very inspiring and gives me new hope.

Brenda M. Asterino

So what else is new?Of course, Mary Magdalene could have written the 4th Gospel. Easy for me
to believe.

Marilyn Brinkman

Yes, of course possible but “proving” it was another matter.
The perfection of Jusino’s argument excites me. By the end of the article we're
convinced that not attributing the Gospel to Mary Magdalene is unreasonable.
For people used to church talk and scripture analysis this is a breakthrough,
very new.

I read that information a few years ago and found
it more believable than much of what I've read about her over the years,
including what is in our bible. You know that she was a most prominent
disciple because they named her a prostitute, the worst they could think
of.

In the Old Testament you read that when they came
across idols they destroyed them. However, if they found a figure of a
feminine deity they destroyed it, shattered it, crushed it. They were so
threatened!

Maxine Moe Rasmussen

I’ve been familiar with the Jusino paper for a while, and it
makes sense to me. I would give it better than 50-50 odds to be essentially
correct. The key point is that the BD is the only significant person in the NT
who is not named.

Charles J. McMahon, Jr.

Professor emeritus, Science and Engineering, University of
Pennsylvania

Interesting and very plausible. Ray Brown at least
gave it some consideration.

Gene Beniek

I believe that Raymond Brown would concur if he would consider Jusino's evidence.
The tide is turning toward crediting the feminine. I admit I had to change my own awareness of feminine power, and scholars of theology have educated me as much as scientists.

The concept of Mary Magdalene being the Beloved Disciple is
not that far of a stretch for me. However, Dan Brown's movie (Da Vinci Code) did not/does not help
with pushing serious biblical studies forward.

The 4th Gospel is so very different in style and in
describing the Last Supper that I have no problem in believing that it was written by a woman.
And the Letters of John and the addresses of "my little
children" to the people, could also have been written by a woman (Mary
Magdalene or even Mary, Jesus' mother).

Charlene Ozanick

The future of our species may well depend on achieving
left/right masculine/feminine balance. . . . Our species has been far too left
brain, masculine dominant.

I have long thought She was His wife, lover, confidant.

John Chuchman

I have suspected the same. Maybe common law
wife? The Nazarene was more counter-cultural than Christianity imagines
him.

It has been my idea for quite some time that MM was much
more than an apostle. And the one to carry on when Jesus left – in teaching and
leading His disciples.

Mary Marrucci

Paul was the one who carried on but he gave us the myth of Jesus
on the cross saving the world. This myth took off and consoled many who
needed it, but its persistence in the face of science frustrates me.

Have you considered the idea that the "mission"
was at the least a joint mission and possibly mainly hers but, due to the
times, Jesus had to take it on?

So YES. I do believe that she wrote it.

Carol ORourke

Reflecting further about "mission,” we today also have a
mission, which we help to carry out with this exchange on the feminine aspect
of the Good News given humanity two thousand years ago.

September 26

At a gathering with college classmates, someone mentioned
the unlikelihood that Mary Magdalene could write. She was responding to my
title “Mary Magdalene wrote the 4th Gospel.”Her comment told me that I need to correct the
impression I created with my ill-chosen word. I keep forgetting that my readers
may not understand my words as I intend them. I should have known that “wrote”
would be confusing.

Mary Magdalene was not the scribe who wrote the gospel on
papyrus. She was not even one of the people who organized the gospel. This all
happened after her death.As I wrote,

Works of antiquity go through modifications or redactions,
but the acknowledged author “is the person whose ideas the book expresses.”

The final version of the gospel was written after the death
of the Beloved Disciple.

I should have said Mary Magdalene authored the 4th Gospel because, as leader of the
community from which the gospel emerged, she originated its content.
Oct. 10:

I think the form we have
of the 4th Gospel, like all the canonical gospels, went through several redactions, not only
the one eliminating M. Magdalene. I speculate that some of it may
have been written during her lifetime, some written while
remembering things she said, and some like half of Pauline
literature, written to
further the thought of a disciple of Jesus.

I'd like to think more than the deletions of MM
are the work of others, for instance, the hatred toward Jews,
for which the 4th is notorious.

The Gospel we know definitely attained form after MM's death.
But she founded and led the community from which it sprang.

One more item regarding the Magdalene. This wise observation
from Char:

By making the relationship between Jesus and Mary—sexual and
with a child born—Dan Brown's book (and subsequent movie) The Da Vinci Code have Hollywoodized and trivialized the strong
friend-spiritual relationship between Jesus and Mary. It will take time
for Dan Brown's ideas to get out of people's heads (sigh).

The book and movie may have made the general public think,
but individuals who REALLY KNOW their historical background found the book and
movie to be ridiculous. The problem wouldn't be there if Dan Brown hadn't
told everyone that what he had was ACCURATE and was going to turn everything upside-down.
MOST of what he cited as evidence was not accurate.

But in the aftermath—when serious historical scholars from excellent
universities make a statement, they are treated just like people who claim that
they entertained the Lock Ness monster for tea and crumpets. It makes it all
the harder to present serious evidence to support the role that women really
did have in the church.

Charlene Ozanick

I apply this to the global warming “debate,” which leaves
scientists shaking their heads in frustration because ignorant comments are
given the same weight as scientific evidence.

The editor, Karen
Tate of CA, conducts Internet radio interviews illuminating the ascension of
the Divine Feminine, which becomes more apparent on the global scene every day.
You can learn how to harness the Sacred Feminine to participate in the
evolution of human consciousness.

2 comments:

We are the verge of a revolution of thought. We are living the revolution everyday - just look at how the NFL is crumbling in the wake of brutality toward women. A decade or two from now we will look back at this time and say, "Yes, of course - how could we not see the Great She was making her comeback!" And those of us brave enough to have perpetuated this enlightenment while certainly the cognitive minority now - will be vindicated as wayshowers later.

There's no way a woman of that time could have penned a gospel. Besides it is explicit the author is male. Magdalene is important enough in Scripture and church,there's no need to perpetuate the nonsense of her being the authoress.

Welcome

Interested in religions and spirituality? You've come to the right place.

In Shakespeare’s play, Hamlet says, “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,/ Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” This is a two-edged challenge. It invites believers to rethink their dogmas, and it challenges people without faith to rethink their certainty that everything religious is bunk.